Rebels kill 192 in Ugandan refugee camp

A picture taken November 21, 2003 shows Peter, sitting wounded on his bed in the district hospital in the northern Uganda town of Lira. Peter was wounded with machetes during a raid by the LRA rebels. Photo: AFP

Armed with assault rifles, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades, rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army attacked Barloonyo camp in Uganda's Lira district late on Saturday, burning huts and shooting people as they fled, Charles Anjiro said.

"It's a hopeless situation. We went there this morning [Sunday] with the Lira district police commander and physically counted 192 bodies," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Lira town, 26 kilometres south of the camp. "The scene is terrible, it's the worst situation I've ever seen in my life."

Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza confirmed the attack, but said he did not know the death toll.

He said it was possible that more than 100 people were killed in the camp, which was home to about 5000 people, living in makeshift grass huts, who left their houses because of the rebellion.

Many of the camp's inhabitants ran to their huts, rather than trying to escape, and were burnt alive as the rebels torched their houses, said the Reverend Sebhat Ayele, who also visited the camp yesterday.

Mr Ayele, an Eritrean missionary with the Roman Catholic Comboni Fathers Mission, said he counted 121 bodies and was told another 51 had already been buried.

It was not possible to contact the Lord's Resistance Army, a shadowy group that has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni since he came to power in 1986 after a five-year bush war.

"I saw one hut with seven family members still burning and three [people] in the next hut were also still burning," Mr Ayele said by telephone from Lira town, which is 250 kilometres north of Kampala.

The camp was guarded by members of a local defence force, but they were outnumbered and outgunned, Major Bantariza said.

"Instead of running away they [people in the camp] entered their huts and the rebels burnt them alive," he said.

Second Lieutenant Chris Magezi, an army spokesman in the region, said government forces were pursuing the rebels.

He was also unable to confirm the death toll, but he said it appeared to be one of the worst rebel attacks for several years.

Led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers, the rebels have wreaked havoc across northern and north-eastern Uganda, forcing an estimated one million people to flee their homes.

The group replenishes its ranks with children it abducts to use as fighters, porters or concubines.

The rebels used to launch attacks into northern Uganda from neighbouring southern Sudan. But in March 2002, the Sudanese Government - which Mr Museveni had accused of supporting the insurgents - agreed to permit Ugandan troops to enter southern Sudan to destroy rebels bases in what was dubbed "Operation Iron Fist".

The operation drove the rebels into northern Uganda where they renewed their attacks on villages and camps, looting and killing. The insurgency spread to eastern Uganda last year.

The Government attempted draw the rebels into peace talks last year, but the insurgents, who claim they are defending the interests of the people of northern Uganda, refused to gather in government-designated areas and the talks never took place.

After the September 11 attacks on the United States, US President George Bush put the group, which rarely makes contact with the outside world, on a list of organisations suspected to have links to terrorism.